STOCKTON - Jeffrey Michael didn't step, wade or even leap into the state's water wars.

Alex Breitler

STOCKTON - Jeffrey Michael didn't step, wade or even leap into the state's water wars.

He made a cannonball splash.

The 38-year-old University of the Pacific economist wrote a biting critique of a major study that recommended a peripheral canal to solve the Delta's problems.

Michael moved here nine months ago from Maryland. He's driven through the Delta once. He wasn't around for decades of arguments for and against a canal.

"When I started reading this (study), my assumption was that these academic experts are right and these water war veterans have an ax to grind," he said.

Closer calculations, however, turned up serious errors in the study by the Public Policy Institute of California, he said.

In that widely anticipated report, the PPIC found that while ending exports from the Delta would be best for the environment, it would be far more expensive than constructing a canal. The report was one source considered by a governor-appointed task force that later concluded that at least some kind of canal is necessary.

Michael, who presented his findings to local water officials last week, says the PPIC overestimated the state's future population and the cost of alternative water sources that could help make up for the water that would be lost should the giant export pumps near Tracy grind to a halt.

Ultimately, the cost of ending exports and building a canal may be a wash, Michael said. And in that case, the environment should win out. Ending exports would be the way to go.

The PPIC says that while some of its numbers may be on the high end, others are likely low. Michael's critique changed only "one or two variables from a complex analysis," the group wrote in response.

"He's done back-of-the-envelope (calculations) and is touting that as some great science," said Ellen Hanak, director of research with the San Francisco-based PPIC.

She said the PPIC stands by its conclusion.

"We don't have any vested interest in a peripheral canal," Hanak said. "We would have been totally happy to say ending exports would be best for fish and the best solution overall. We had no interest in cooking numbers to come up with the peripheral canal."

Here's where Michael says the PPIC fell short:

» The PPIC estimated California's population at 65 million by 2050, a number Michael says is likely 6 million to 10 million too high. If he's right, fewer people means less urban demand for water.

Even the state's current population appears to be incorrect in the report, which claims 39 million Californians this year. The state Department of Finance reports 38 million.

"It's a problem when you can't get the current population right," Michael said.

The PPIC said that its population projection rests on a more in-depth but older study from the University of California, Berkeley.

» Desalination - turning salty water fresh - will be cheaper in 2050 than the PPIC projects, Michael said. So, too, will be the recycling of wastewater. This would further reduce the cost of ending exports, he argues.

A report by the National Research Council in May put desalination at about $1,000 per acre-foot (that's enough water to serve an average family for about one year). The PPIC said desalination in 2050 is likely to cost $2,072 per acre-foot in today's dollars.

In Orange County, a wastewater recycling plant costs about $550 per acre-foot, Michael reported; PPIC projected $1,480 per acre-foot in 2050, again not counting for inflation.

It's true that electricity costs could cause these numbers to climb. But pumping water from the Delta to Southern California also takes tremendous amounts of energy, Michael said.

While uncertainty in studies such as these is inevitable, Michael said PPIC experts should have picked figures that were middle-of-the-road when they ran their model to determine the overall cost.

"There are some really obvious and hard-to-defend issues here," he said.

In the end, claims that California's economy will run dry without water conveyed through the Delta "are less credible than previous predictions that the nation's economy would collapse with gas at $3 per gallon," Michael wrote, further noting that the cost of ending Delta exports would account for about 0.03 percent of the state economy.

In a written response to his work, PPIC said there are many other factors, including climate change, that could affect how much water is available by 2050. Some may be overestimated, and some may be underestimated. It would take an "improbable confluence" of errors to narrow the $1 billion difference that PPIC says exists between ending exports on the one hand, and building a peripheral canal on the other.

"We feel like, on balance, we don't think there is any significant upward bias on our results," Hanak said.

She said the PPIC did not plan to rerun its analysis using Michael's numbers. That would be time-consuming.

Michael, who heads the university's Business Forecasting Center, published his informal critique on the Internet and was surprised to see it devoured with interest by the public, in particular anti-canal advocates.

It's also got the attention of the state. Keith Coolidge, a spokesman for the Delta Vision process, said officials there were aware of Michael's work and said it will "clearly play a role in discussions as they move forward."

It's not too late for Michael's report to have some kind of influence, said Tom Flinn, San Joaquin County's director of Public Works.

Flinn called Michael's work "refreshing" given the fact that he's new to the Delta scene.